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The Story…

The following is based on a true story.

The Essenes were a sect that flourished from the 2nd century B.C. to the 1st century A.D. Many separate but related religious groups of that era shared similar mystic beliefs. These groups are collectively referred to by various scholars as the Essenes.

The Essenes have gained fame in modern times as a result of the discovery of an extensive group of religious documents known as the Dead Sea Scrolls. These scrolls are commonly believed to be the Essenes’ library. These documents preserve parts of the Hebrew Bible untouched from possibly as early as 300 B.C. until their discovery in 1946. Some scholars dispute the notion that the Essenes wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls. Some scholars even question the existence of the Essenes.

The Dead Sea Scrolls are a collection of some 981 different texts discovered between 1946 and 1956 in eleven caves. These caves are located near the shore of the Dead Sea, from which they derive their name.

Due to the poor condition of some of the Scrolls, not all of them have been identified. A few of the scrolls deciphered, like the Community Rule, the War Scroll, and the Rule of the Blessing help shed light on previously unknown life and culture.

One of the most intriguing manuscripts is the Copper Scroll, a sort of ancient treasure map that lists dozens of gold and silver caches. While the other texts are written in ink on parchment or animal skins, this curious document features Hebrew and Greek letters chiseled onto metal sheets. Perhaps, as some have theorized, to better withstand the passage of time. Using an unconventional vocabulary and odd spellings, the Copper Scroll describes 64 underground hiding places around Israel that purportedly contain riches stashed for safekeeping. None of these hoards have been recovered; possibly because the Romans pillaged Judaea during the first century A.D.

According to various hypotheses; the treasure could have belonged to local Essenes, or possibly spirited out of the Second Temple before its destruction, or that the treasures never existed at all.

We believe the recent discovery of a mostly intact document named “the Scroll of the Essenes” reveals a clue to what happened to the treasure after it was moved. We are convinced it was brought to the Americas by our forefathers and hidden once again. Although our American ancestors did not leave us scrolls to decipher, they did leave us clues hidden within our monuments; unique features and architecture of our cities knowing that these sites would be able to carry the secrets for the centuries to come.